The Something Borrowed Affair
by autumnrose2010
Summary: Sequel to 'The Through Your Eyes Affair.' Right before Illya and Marion are to be married, baby Elijah is kidnapped by THRUSH.
1. Chapter 1

"He'll be fine," the emergency room physician assured a worried Marion. "Just make sure he takes all of the antibiotic, and take him back to his regular doctor if he isn't better in a few days."

The normally docile Elijah had become fussy and ill-tempered, refusing to eat and crying for long periods of time at a spell. Marion had taken his temperature and discovered that he was burning up with fever, but as it was the weekend, his regular pediatrician's office had been closed, and she'd had to take him to the emergency room instead, where the not-quite-one-year-old had been diagnosed with an ear infection and prescribed antibiotics.

Marion looked tenderly into her tiny son's clear blue eyes. "I know it hurts, sweetie," she murmured. "The doctor gave you some medicine, and it's going to make you feel better really soon."

As they left the hospital, they walked past the lab, where a tall, pale, pimply-faced young man gazed intently at them. He'd done all the blood work on the Kuryakin child when he's first been seen and knew exactly what all the results were.

From the hospital, Marion took a cab the short distance to her modest apartment. As it was a nice, sunny day, she normally would have walked, but since Elijah felt so badly, she wanted to get him home as quickly as possible.

Entering the apartment, the slight blonde immediately gave her son a dose of the antibiotic followed by a bottle of milk. She rocked him to sleep and had just gotten him settled in his crib when the telephone rang. It was Illya.

"Hi! How did the fishing trip go?" she asked. Illya and Napoleon had gone fishing that morning, and as he's spent almost every moment of his free time for the past several weeks slaving over wedding preparations, Marion didn't begrudge her fiance a morning of relaxation with his former partner and best friend.

"Very well. Napoleon and I both caught more than enough to fry for a meal. How are you and our little one?"

"I had to take him to the emergency room. He was running a really high fever. They told me he has an ear infection and gave me antibiotics to give him."

"And how is he now?"

"I gave him his first dose and a bottle of milk, and he's asleep now."

"And how are you?"

"Fine. Just kind of tired. We were in the emergency room for a really long time."

"Get some rest. I will come over soon."

Marion took a nap and then freshened up in preparation for Illya's arrival. He came over later in the afternoon, bringing the fish, which he'd already cleaned and gutted.

"Hello, darling!" Marion gave him a quick hug and kiss.

"I want to see my son," he said.

Elijah had heard his father entering the apartment and awakened. When they entered the nursery, they saw that he was standing up and holding onto the bars of the crib.

_"Sinochka!" _Illya went to his young son and picked him up.

"Papa!" cried Elijah.

"Mama told me that you are not feeling well," Illya continued. "It will be all right. Papa has caught some nice fish, and when you are feeling better later, you can eat some for dinner this evening." He turned to Marion. "How about you, Mama? Do you feel all right?"

"I'm fine." Marion smiled bravely.

"Good. We shall all enjoy a nice evening together, then."

* * *

Kurt Holden sat in a chair beside the hospital bed of his ten-month-old son, Troy. Troy was suffering from acute renal failure and needed a kidney transplant as quickly as possible. The doctors hoped to find a compatible donor soon but, unknown to them, Kurt had an alternative source of help. As one of THRUSH's highest operatives, he had several undercover agents planted in the hospital, including one in the lab. He felt confident that a kidney would be found for his son very soon.


	2. Chapter 2

Marion looked thoughtfully at the wide assortment of bridal displays at Vanya's. "Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something..."

Illya grinned and held a pair of sapphire earrings out to her.

"They're lovely," she agreed. "But will they match the dress?"

"Any color matches white," he pointed out.

"I know, but would they look as good as the pearls? Or what about the diamonds?"

"Decisions, decisions," Illya said wryly. In all the years he'd worked as an UNCLE agent, he'd been subjected to various forms of torture, and what he was obliged to go through now seemed to be merely a new and different form.

He didn't really mind, however, since it was for the sake of Marion's happiness. Understandably, she wanted everything to be absolutely perfect. In the eight and a half months since she'd returned to New York City from the Virgin Islands bearing the evidence that he was now a father, the tenderness he'd felt for her ever since their first meeting had blossomed into true love. He'd enjoyed watching Elijah grow from a tiny infant to the active little boy he was now, and he looked forward to watching him mature to adulthood.

Suddenly the telephone rang, and Illya hurried to answer it. He heard the panicked voice of Elijah's babysitter, Bonita. The woman was near tears.

"He's gone, Mr. Kuryakin!" she cried. "He woke up and started crying, so I went into the kitchen for just a minute to warm up a bottle for him, and when I got back, he was gone!"

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" Illya demanded. "He could not have simply disappeared! There would have been signs of forced entry!"

"But there aren't any! I would have heard an intruder, or the sound of breaking glass, but I heard nothing at all!"

"Stay right where you are," Illya instructed her. "Marion and I will be there as quickly as possible!"

When Marion saw how pale Illya's face was, she knew right away that something was terribly wrong. She felt the cold hand of fear grip her heart. "It's Elijah, isn't it?" she asked.

"We must return to your apartment right away," he replied gruffly.

"What's wrong? Is he ill?"

Illya didn't answer right away. Knowing how badly it would upset her, he wanted to put off telling her as long as possible, but by the time they reached her apartment, she was near hysterics.

As Bonita had said, there was no evidence whatsoever of forced entry into the apartment. The door was still locked, and the window hadn't been broken. The crib's side had been lowered, and Elijah's blue blanket was missing, as was his teddy bear.

"My baby!" Marion collapsed to the floor in sobs. Illya knelt beside her and put his arms around her.

"I am sure that he will be found quickly," he told her. "The police are already combing the city, and I have notified Napoleon as well. They are not going to get very far."

Despite his efforts to comfort Marion, Illya was badly shaken himself. New York City was huge, and the abductor could have gone in any direction. Chances of apprehending him soon seemed slim.

* * *

Before being recruited by THRUSH, Willie Sanderson had been a small-time crook whose repertoire consisted mainly of random pocket pickings, purse snatchings, and petty shopliftings. The young man's nimbleness, his swiftness, and his ability to move with lightning speed without making any sound at all had attracted the attention of a recruiter for THRUSH who'd made Willie an offer he couldn't refuse. His cleverness in being able to successfully tamper with the locks on the windows of Elijah's nursery without being detected had led to the successful kidnapping of the child.

Now he entered the small apartment currently occupied by Kurt Holden and his wife Elsa, carrying his prize, young Elijah Kuryakin. The child had been given a sedative to ensure that he would remain drowsy, and his blue eyes peeked at the Holdens with mild curiosity from within the security of the blue blanket. He clutched his teddy bear tightly.

"Oh, isn't he a sweetheart!" Elsa exclaimed, taking the warm bundle from Willie. "Oh, Kurt, I don't think I'm going to be able to go through with this after all!"

"Don't be a fool, darling," her husband reproved her. "You know that this is Troy's only hope for survival, and the other child won't truly be harmed at all. He'll be fully anesthetized for the entire procedure, and afterwards, he'll be able to function just as well with one kidney as with two."

"But still..." Elsa thought about how much she loved her son, how terrified she was at the thought of losing him. Yet she knew that this other little boy had parents who loved him as well, who were undoubtedly heartbroken right now. How would she feel if little Troy suddenly went missing? As hard as she tried, she simply couldn't push the thought from her mind.


	3. Chapter 3

The rest of the day passed like a slow nightmare for Illya and Marion. Marion wasn't able to do anything but pace back and forth, wringing her hands and sobbing. Illya just watched her, his eyes full of torment. Never in his life had he imagined that anything could be this painful.

The hours ticked by with no news. Napoleon visited and offered his support.

"You do not know how I feel," Illya told him coldly. "You have never had a child."

Napoleon had to concede that he was right.

"I remember the day I took him to the emergency room," Marion suddenly recalled. "As we were leaving, the door to the lab was open, and there was this tall, skinny guy just staring at us. It really gave me the creeps."

"Besides the fact that he was tall and skinny, what did he look like?"

"He had short brown hair and acne. He was very young, too. No older than twenty-five."

"I will mention that fact to the police," said Illya. "They can ask to check the hospital employee records to see whether anyone working in the lab matches that description."

He called the police right away, and they promised to look into it. "I am glad that you remembered that fact," he told Marion afterwards. "It may well increase the chances of Elijah's being found quickly."

"I want my baby!" Marion wailed for the umpteenth time that day. Illya put his arms around her and comforted her the best he could, his own heart aching almost more than he could bear.

* * *

"But that's not possible!" Dr. Dwight Majors, Troy Holden's physician, exclaimed. "A compatible donor couldn't possibly have been found this quickly!"

"And yet it has," the laboratory employee told him. "When you get here, you can see for yourself. All the tissue components match up perfectly. This transplant is guaranteed to be a success. There's no reason for the operation to be delayed any further."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Dwight mumbled, heading for his car. As long as he'd been searching for a kidney for the Holden child, he simply couldn't believe that one could have been found this quickly. Yet, he couldn't run the risk of missing this opportunity, just in case it should prove to be true, after all.

The physician was about halfway to the hospital when he heard the grating of steel against asphalt and realized that, to his chagrin, one of his car's tires had blown.

* * *

Troy Holden and Elijah Kuryakin waited in side-by-side cribs in the pre-surgical area. They'd both been prepped and were ready to be taken back just as soon as the surgeon arrived.

Elsa Holden had been left alone with her son and the other child while her husband had gone outside to pace nervously and smoke cigarettes. She looked at little Elijah playing contentedly in his crib and knew that in a half hour or so, he'd be lying unconscious on an operating table with a scalpel slicing into his tender flesh. And it was all because her husband had been unwilling to wait for a voluntary donor and had taken matters into his own hands.

Suddenly Elsa couldn't take it anymore. She loved her son dearly and desperately wanted him to live, but there had to be a better way than stealing an organ from another child, a child who was every bit as helpless and innocent as Troy himself was.

Her mind made up, Elsa left the pre-surgical area and went in search of the hospital's administration department.

* * *

Illya's heart beat like a drum as he raced to the hospital as quickly as he could. The police had called and told him that the hospital had no record of his son having ever been treated there at all. Yet Illya specifically remembered Marion telling him that she'd had Elijah treated for an ear infection there. He knew that Marion wouldn't have lied about that. Why would she have? The only explanation was that the hospital records had been stolen, presumably by a hospital employee.

Convinced that the answer to his son's current whereabouts lay at the hospital, Illya couldn't get there quickly enough. He was nearing the entrance when he saw a familiar face. Kurt Holden had been an ever present nemesis during Illya's years as an UNCLE agent. Upon his resignation, he'd assumed he'd never see the man again, yet here he was, pacing madly back and forth and smoking cigarettes.

He grabbed the front of the man's shirt and roughly pulled him toward himself. "What have you done with my son?" he snarled.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kurt huffed. "Now let me go before I send you flying."

"Not until you tell me what you've done with my son!" Illya growled.

"I don't even know who you are!" Kurt lied.

Just then a hospital security guard appeared. "What's going on here?" he demanded.


	4. Chapter 4

"He has my son!" Illya shrieked.

"He's lying!" Kurt protested. "I don't even know who he is!"

The security guard looked to Illya for an explanation. "My son has just been kidnapped, and I have good reason to believe that Mr. Holden was behind it," Illya explained.

Just then Dr. Majors appeared, having taken a taxi to the hospital. "Mr. Holden!" he exclaimed in surprise. "Is there a problem?"

"I came outside for a breath of fresh air, and this man attacked me and accused me of kidnapping his son," Kurt replied.

"I think we should call the police and get this matter settled once and for all," the security guard announced.

"Oh, no, please don't call the police right now!" Kurt exclaimed. "My son is just about to undergo a lifesaving operation. Can't you wait and call them after it's over?"

Suddenly Illya realized exactly what the situation must be. "You kidnapped my son to serve as an organ donor for your own son, is that right?" he accused.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kurt bluffed.

"What's your name, sir?" the security guard asked Illya.

"Illya Kuryakin, sir."

"And your son's name?"

"Elijah Kuryakin."

"Come with me," the security guard told Illya and Kurt. "We'll get this matter settled right now."

* * *

"It's correct. I _do _have a Troy Holden scheduled for a kidney transplant to begin as soon as the physician arrives," the hospital administrator informed the security guard. "However, I cannot in good conscience allow the operation to proceed, as I have just been informed that the consent form supposedly signed by the parents of the donor child was forged."

"That's a lie!" Kurt roared. "I have documented proof that..."

But the administrator was shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Mr. Holden."

"Who told you the signature was forged?" Kurt demanded.

"I did." Suddenly Elsa Holden was standing beside the administrator. "You knew all along that what we were doing was wrong, Kurt. For our son's sake, I went along with it for as long as I could, but when I saw little Elijah lying there looking up at me with those trusting eyes, I just couldn't go through with it. You know that I love Troy just as much as you do, but there has to be some other way to save him."

"I can't believe this!" Kurt was in agony, tearing at his hair. "Betrayed by my own wife!"

Elsa tried to return to the pre-surgical area to retrieve her son, but two uniformed policemen stood in her way. They confronted her husband as well.

"Kurt and Elsa Holden, you are both under arrest for kidnapping, forgery, medical record theft, and endangering the welfare of a child." Illya watched as the two were handcuffed and led away, then followed the hospital administrator to the pre-surgical area to collect Elijah.

* * *

"Oh, Elijah!" Marion sobbed with relief as she took her small son into her arms. "Your Papa and me were so worried about you!"

"Everything is all right now, _dorogaya," _Illya murmured. "Our son is back with us, safe and sound."

"But why did they take him?" asked Marion. "Were they not able to have a baby of their own?"

Illya shook his head. "They have a son Elijah's age who needs a kidney transplant, and Elijah was a perfect match. They were just about to wheel him into surgery when I arrived at the hospital."

"Oh, no!" The realization of what had almost happened to her son made Marion shudder.

"So what will happen to the other little boy now?"

"He's been taken by Child Protective Services. They will put him into a foster home until a donor kidney can be found for him."

"And the parents?"

"The father will hopefully be sentenced to hard time. They will probably be much more lenient with the mother, as she relented at the last minute and informed hospital administration of the plot."

"I hope so." Marion, emotionally exhausted, sank down onto the sofa. Illya sat beside her and put his arms around her.


	5. Epilogue

_Warning: mild het_

Organ music played as Marion, breathtakingly beautiful in a lacy white gown with matching head dress, walked down the aisle toward her beloved. Illya, dashingly handsome in his black tuxedo and tie, watched adoringly from where he stood. He and Marion had waited for this day for so long, and now that it was finally here, their joy knew no bounds.

The music stopped, and the ceremony began. As Marion listened to the minister's words, her heart was filled with joy. Her son had been returned to her safe and sound, and from this day forward, she and Illya would be one.

"Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin, do you take Marion Jill Raven to be your lawfully wedded wife?" asked the minister.

"I do," said Illya.

"Marion Jill Raven, do you take Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do," said Marion.

"Then, by the powers vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Illya lifted Marion's veil and kissed her lips. A reception with a four-tiered cake and punch followed.

"Awfully glad it's you and not me," Napoleon said to his friend.

"So am I," Illya replied with a smile. He couldn't imagine his former partner ever being able to settle down with just one woman.

"So it's off to the Virgin Islands for a couple of weeks and then a lifetime of wedded bliss here in New York City." Marion had spent a few months on the Virgin Islands as part of the Witness Protection Program the previous year and wanted to share some of her favorite spots with Illya.

"I hope so." Illya gave a sharp chuckle. "Although I cannot imagine going any length of time at all without having to look over my shoulder."

"Well, at least you don't have to worry about Kurt Holden anymore." As Illya had predicted, the THRUSH operative had indeed received a lengthy prison sentence. In exchange for testifying against her husband, Elsa Holden had received a suspended sentence and had also been allowed to retain custody of her son. She'd begun divorce proceedings against Kurt and had begged Illya and Marion to forgive her for her part in Elijah's kidnapping. As a mother herself, Marion had readily forgiven the distraught woman, but predictably, it had been much more difficult to win Illya's sympathy.

Willie Sanderson and the hospital lab worker had also received prison terms for their parts in the ruse.

The newlyweds boarded the airplane to the Virgin Islands after kissing their son good-bye and leaving him in Bonita's care. Understandably, Marion had been reluctant to leave her son for that length of time so soon after his return, and it had taken quite a bit of persuasion from Illya to convince her that Elijah really would be all right.

Later that night, the petite blonde waited in bed for her new husband to come to her. Illya emerged from the bathroom naked except for the towel around his waist.

"Mm," Marion moaned appreciatively. She tugged at the towel, which immediately dropped to the floor.

"We have not had nearly enough time to be alone together recently," Illya stated as he joined her in bed. "I intend to begin making up for that right away."

They began to kiss passionately, Marion's fingers running through Illya's blond locks as his hands moved underneath her thin nightgown to tease her nipples until they ached.

Soon her nightgown and panties had both been dispensed with, and as he slid into her warm, moist cavern, he knew that he'd never felt happier or more secure.


End file.
